Johnson: Truth and Reconciliation
by Fortlowe
Summary: Sergeant Johnson recounts the operation to extract Captain Keyes from the Covenant craft Truth and Reconciliation.


Pain gnawed a hole in my side big enough for me to crawl into and die. I figured I must have had at least two broken ribs. I wasn't going to die that day though. That day I was way too pissed off to die. The boy I was standing over in that holding cell was dead. Beaten to death by a nine-foot tall five hundred pound alien monster. The boy's name was Reynolds. PFC William C. Reynolds. His dog tag said he was Catholic and had blood type O negative; rare.

Reynolds had fought hard against the Elite. Literally tooth and nail, judging from the alien blood staining his chin and his fingertips. They'd broken him though; his arms, his legs, his jaw, his hip, his sternum. Then they just left him there to die hurting and scared; alone and in the dark. His dog tag said he was going to be nineteen years old the next day.

I didn't join the op until just before the incursion onto the Truth and Reconciliation. A team of ODST's and the Master Chief were dropped in ahead of my men and me. Their job was to disable the Covenant anti aircraft guns and secure a LZ for our Pelican under the Covenant battle ship. When we landed we were supposed to keep that LZ secure so the door would be open until the Chief and the Helljumpers boarded the ship, secured the Captain, and got the hell out of dodge. When we arrived at the LZ, there was still a firefight blazing. The ODST' s had put the Covenant anti aircraft guns out of commission, but at much too heavy a cost. Of the sixteen Helljumpers that started the mission, six remained. Six Helljumpers and the Spartan.

"Alright you lucky bastards! Looks like the LZ is hot and those Helljumpers could use a hand springing the Captain. That means we don't have to waist time warming up on any of those punk ass little grunts. I see a pair of Hunters down there and five Elites. Barry, as soon as we touch down I want you on one knee with that Jackhammer primed and ready to fire!"

"Aww, Sarge. On one knee? I don't think I'm ready to propose yet!" Barry yelled over the comm. Private Maria Barry was a tall drink of water out of the Bronx back on Earth. She had an Italian accent she got from her mom I suppose. She always had a smart alleck remark for me just before we got into the shit.

"Little girl, if you don't shut that smart yap the hell up I promise I will make that proposal an order!"

"Sarge! I didn't know you cared!" she replied covering her mouth with her hand in mock delight.

"Not to me, wise ass! To Hassan!" That shut her up and put a big smile on Hassan's mug. Dr. Saed Hassan had joined the Corps when he was thirty-one. He was a lab rat who worked in forensics. He told me he joined up because he wanted to a chance to meet new people; new people that were still breathing, that is. If I were his recruiting officer, I would have told him that in this war anybody he did meet wouldn't be breathing for much longer after he met them. Hassan had a thing for Barry and it was no secret to the entire company. That's why the rest of my men were snickering.

My team was a good group. Hassan was a goof socially, but he was ice cold in a firefight. Barry fought with a chip on her shoulder. A mean streak was a good thing where we were going. There was also Perez, Walker and Mobuto.

Private Danny Perez only spoke Spanish. He understood English perfectly well, but he would only reply in Spanish. Danny was a good wheelman. When we needed to ride a Warthog into a fight he was as good as they come at the wheel.

Private Jason Walker came from old money. He joined up after watching a planet get glassed by the Covenant. His father's money allowed him to escape getting glassed; but not the memory of his home world being destroyed. I had work to real hard to keep him reeled in. Remembering his home world getting glassed put a kamikaze streak into him sometimes. Walker went after an Elite with nothing but a damned combat knife once. Perez and Walker liked to snap at each other under fire like it was a game of hoops.

Augustine Mobuto was our combat medic. He was a brick shithouse and looked like he was cut out of a cast iron block. He was also Sgt. Marvin Mobuto's oldest nephew. Marvin was my Drill Sergeant way back when I was in basic. He was somewhere on this Ring too. I owed that ornery old Leatherneck my life at least five times over. For his sake I was gonna make sure 'Little' Mobuto wasn't going to die as long as I was around to do something about it.

I jumped from the ramp to the ground before the Pelican touched down. I fired my MA5B at an approaching Elite. It was a rookie, judging not only by its blue armor, but also from its apparent lack of enough sense to seek cover when being fired upon. It kept on charging right at me soaking up round after round. Finally its shields failed just in time for my clip to run dry, which I know was what he was counting on. The rookie growled a challenge at me firing its plasma rifle all wild and undisciplined as it approached. I slung my rifle, pulled my M6D, and shot that dumb son of a bitch right in the head from twenty meters away.

"Move your asses you lazy little shits! I want this LZ to be quiet as a library inside of the next three minutes!" I yelled back into the Pelican as it touched down behind me.

"Barry! Make that Hunter into stew!" I said pointing.

"On it, sir!" she replied just as she fired the rocket. It flew though the air leaving a trail of smoke behind it. Barry was an artist with an M19. I've seen her take out two Ghosts with one shot without hardly even breaking stride. You might as well have named that chip on her shoulder "Jackhammer'.

The rocket hit the Hunter dead on and it exploded into orange paste. I could feel her smiling behind me while I reloaded my rifle and fed a round into the chamber.

"Don't get too smug, Barry." I chided. "That was a lucky shot."

Still smiling, she said "Yessir!"

"Walker! Perez! I want suppressing fire on those Jackals coming down the gravity lift. Make sure they keep their ugly little heads down behind those shields while I link up with the ODST' s.

"Foehammer? Do you read me?"

"Loud and clear Sarge." The pilot replied over the comm.

"We got wounded down here that need evac. Can you hold on until we mop up here?

"Can do, Sergeant. Just keep the Covenant off me until then."

I said to Barry, Walker, and Perez. "Did you hear that Marines? Foehammer just got a brand new paint job on her pelican and I don't want even one scratch on it! Hassan! Mobuto! You're with me. Let's get it in gear!"

The gravity lift was in a depression in the ground below us. The Pelican was parked on the ledge of a cliff face. No chance at being flanked from that position. Across the depression, I could see the ODST' s taking cover behind an overturned Shade. They were at least eighty meters away, which made Barry's shot all the more impressive. We slid down into the depression and made our way around the far side of the lift. Perez and Walker were on their job keeping the Jackals busy while we made our way to the Shade.

"Sergeant Parker! You still alive over there?" I asked the ODST CO over the comm.

"Yeah we're still here!" I could hear gun reports and plasma fire in the background. "But it's getting pretty sporting! Glad you could make it, Johnson!"

Hassan, Mobuto, and I were hunkered down at the lip of the depression. A couple of Elites had managed to get one of the Shades back up and in gear and were pouring it on Parker and her men. The Spartan was engaging another pair of Elites and a Hunter on his own.

"Barry!" I said over the comm.

"Yessir!"

"I got a problem over here. You see that Shade over there on the ridge?

"Not for long I won't, sir."

"That's my girl! Perez! Walker. We're clear of the lift. You can stop playing around with those Jackals. Move in and hit'em with the M9's. Hassan! Mobuto! As soon as that Shade is down I want you to mop up the Elites manning it if they're still breathing. Then I want you to hook up with Parker and her men. Gimme a status report as soon as you're finished assessing the situation behind that downed shade.

"Echo 419! How we looking over there?" I asked over the comm.

"Meter's running, Sarge." She replied.

"Copy that."

To Mobuto and Hassan I said, "Start getting the wounded prepped for evac and police up any ammo and ordinance you can find. From the looks of it, this ain't going to be the babysitting job we signed up for. I'm gonna pull the Master Chief out of the fire. On my mark everybody get to work."

Over the comm. Parker said to me. "I don't think the Chief will be needing that assist, Johnson. He drew them away from us over by that boulder to begin with."

"I'll bet. But I'm not leaving that to chance. If Keyes finds out I left the Chief out to dry it'll be your ass and mine."

The Spartan could have held his own if there was either the two Elites or the Hunter out in the open. I know. I've seen it. But they were giving as good as they were getting from the Chief; a stalemate. The Hunter was closing in though and at close quarters even a Spartan was no match for a Hunter, at least not as long as those Elites were free to take pot shots at him.

"Mark!" I heard Barry's Jackhammer report and jumped up onto the ridge. The Elites were laying down suppressing fire and had the Chief pent down behind a boulder. I lobbed a M9 behind them. The Shade went up and took one of the Elites with it; wounding the other. My M9 went off and blew both of those bastards that were giving the Master Chief lumps to hell.

Over the comm, I said to the Spartan. "Chief! The Elites are out of the picture now, but that Hunter is gonna be breathing down your neck in no time."

"Copy that, Sergeant." With that the Spartan come out from cover. He moved so fast I didn't even know there was a grenade at the Hunter's feet until it went off. The Hunter roared in pain but the grenade hadn't put it out of action. The Chief only meant to distract it with the M9. He was behind the Hunter in a flash with his rifle slung and his pistol drawn. With one shot to the spine the Hunter stood up straight, then collapsed dead. There is a spot on a Hunter at the base of the spine about three by three centimeters around. Put a round though that little bull's eye and a Hunter will be down for the count. I made that shot one time my self; on my stomach with a sniper rifle on a tripod at maximum magnification…in broad daylight. This man just did it with a pistol on the run…at night. I remember thinking maybe Parker was right. Maybe the Chief could have taken them all down on his own.

I heard a couple of M9's go off behind me on the gravity lift. I looked back and the Jackals that had been holding the lift were gone. I looked back over to the Shade and Hassan had his rifle pointed at the wounded Elite lying on the ground. A flash and a short report and the Elite was finished. Mobuto already had his medical kit out and was performing triage.

"Sgt. Johnson I have six immobilized wounded and four KIA. I'll have the wounded prepped for evac in five." Mobuto said over the comm.

"Copy that corpsman. Foehammer! Evac in ten."

"Roger, Sergeant."

We got the wounded and the dead on board the Pelican. The Master Chief had tactical command of the op. There were four Helljumpers including Sgt. Parker left standing. My men were able to salvage forty seven magazines of 7.62mm rounds, eighteen clips of 12.7 mm, another M19 with eight additional rounds, twenty – four M9 frag grenades, a dozen plasma grenades, and a SA sniper rifle with two extra magazines. I distributed the ammo for the assault rifles and the frag grenades to my own men and the remainder of the Helljumpers. The Chief and I split the Magnum ammo along with the plasma grenades (nobody else wanted to handle the Covie grenades because of the radioactivity). I gave the ammo for the Jackhammer to Hassan and Barry. One of the Helljumpers took the Sniper rifle. The Spartan slung the other Jackhammer over his shoulder.

"Lets get ready to board." The Spartan said to us. Parker gave me the thumbs up just before she went up the lift. I'd fought alongside Sergeant Parker a lot of times over a lot of years. I think she had a family back on Earth. We'd spilled buckets of blood in the same mud, but right then I couldn't think of one time we ever exchanged words except when we were on the Job. I hoped I would get a chance to make up for that later.

"It's empty!" Walker whispered.

"Yeah it's like we're in your head." Perez replied.

"Shut up you dick! Where are they?" Walker asked. The lift dropped us on the deck of an empty room. There were a bunch of Covenant storage bins and a Wraith parked inside.

"Quien?" Perez asked Walker.

"The Covenant! Where the hell are they?" The Master Chief approached one of the doors. It must have been motion activated because when the Chief got up to it, the door opened and an Elite clad in red was standing there on the other side. The Elite was caught off guard by the sight of the Chief and flinched. The Chief tackled the Elite and bashed his brains out on the deck. I was hoping that our presence was still going to go unnoticed for a while still. Then reality reached out smacked us in the mouth. Another door opened up and a bunch of Covenant piled into the room, guns blazing.

"No Covenant, huh? You just had to open your mouth, didn't you?" an ODST corporal said.

They came at us from all four sides. At first I thought they were going to overwhelm us. The Chief tossed a plasma grenade into a corridor just as the hatch opened. It stuck to a Grunt and the little shit panicked and ran back into the hallway. The door closed behind him and I think I heard an Elite shout Fool! just before the charge went off. That gave us room enough to breath.

We were able to keep the Covenant assaults limited to incursions from one door at a time. If two doors came open then either the Chief would toss a grenade through it or Barry would hit it with a Jackhammer while we mopped up the others.

So far no one had died and I was beginning to think it was going to stay that way. Then I saw a plasma grenade flying through the air towards the Chief. He had his back turned and I know he didn't see it. Parker had though. She jumped in the way and the grenade hit her square in the chest. I turned and fired in the direction the grenade had come from. A camouflaged Elite had snuck into the room. It became easier to see after I hit it with a burst of 7.62mm armor piercing.

Parker didn't even break stride. She ran right for the previously camouflaged Elite and when she went up, she took that Covie bastard with her. It was a good death.

We cleared the room and the attacks stopped. The Chief led us down a corridor until we reached a big reinforced door. The Spartan started looking off into space. He must have been talking with his onboard A.I.

"There's a hanger that will lead us to the Shuttle Bay on the other side of that door. From the Shuttle Bay we should have access to the rest of the ship. Johnson, I want your men to hold your position behind this door. I'll circle around and open it from the other side." He said to me.

He took off back the way we came without waiting for acknowledgment.

"Sarge, I get the feeling we're the ones getting baby sat, now." Walker said to me.

"Me too, and to hell with that!" I could already hear the sound of a fuel rod gun charging up the corridor.

"Corporal Hassan! I want you to rig this door to blow. If I don't check in with you in ten minutes, blow the door and proceed with the mission. Mobuto, you're with me. Lets get back into this fight."

"Yessir!" The troops said in unison.

On the way up the corridor I heard a Jackhammer go off followed by a roar filled with pain. Then I heard another roar that had a much angrier edge. It didn't sound like good news for the Chief. At the entrance to the lift, I halted Mobuto. I saw that one Hunter was down and the other was firing his Fuel Rod gun at a cluster of Covie storage containers. One of the doors opened up across the way and a couple of Grunts waddled into the room from behind it.

"Stay here and make sure that big son of a bitch doesn't get the jump on me. Don't you move from this spot no matter what, son. If the Covenant gets the better of me in there go back to the rest of the crew and tell Hassan he's in charge." I slung my rifle and pulled my knife. The little bastards were going to try to flank the Chief. I hugged the wall of the room to stay out of eyeshot of the Grunts. I could walk faster than the little bastards could run, so I closed on them way before they could accomplish the flank. When I caught up to them, I picked the one on the left up by the chin guard of his breathing apparatus and slit his throat for him. When I dropped it to the deck the other Grunt looked up at me with a look in its eyes that let me know it would have pissed its pants if it was wearing any. Then I pulled my Magnum and shot it in the face.

The first one dropped a plasma grenade. That damned Hunter was still firing on the Chief's position. It was in a rage, but it knew sooner or later those crates were going to go up. I picked up the grenade and primed it. I tossed it at the Hunter and the grenade stuck to its back. When it went off, the Hunter wobbled a bit but that was the sum of the harm I'd done him. He twirled around and got an eyeful of me unslinging my rifle and pointing it his way. It wasn't an invitation, but it might has well have been.

He forgot about the Chief and charged my position roaring like it had flipped its lid. "Yeah, well fuck you, too!" I growled right back at the bastard. I flipped the selector on my rifle to full auto and let it rip.

When it closed the gap between us by half I started back peddling, but kept firing. I might as well have been using a water gun; almost every round bounced right off the damned things shield. The gun went dry just before I backed into another storage crate. I ducked around it trying to put something between me and the half-ton walking tank that wanted to put me in the hurt locker. The Hunter shouldered the crate and I went flying. Bastard sent me half the way across the room. I fell on the Wraith, my chest taking most of the impact. I could see stars, but I still had my rifle, so I got to my feet. I dashed around to the far side of the Wraith, reloading my weapon on the fly, took up a firing position, and opened up. The Hunter sent a couple of volleys of radioactive slugs my way but the Wraith was holding up. He gave up on the Fuel Rod Cannon and rushed me. I wheeled around looking for options. Before I could come up with something the cock strong S.O.B lifted the front end of the damned tank clean up off the ground with its shield. He leveled the gun at me again. I figured my ticket was about to get punched. Everything slowed down and went quiet. I had a frag grenade in my hands before I knew what I was doing. I saw the green glow of the Fuel Rod gun getting brighter; I started pulling the pin out of the grenade.

Parker died a damned fine death.

Then I heard a single gunshot.

The glow of the gun dimmed and the Hunter had frozen. Then all of a sudden the Wraith fell back to the deck and the Hunter right after it. I slid the pin back in place and looked up. I was still seeing stars, but there he was with one hand gripping a Magnum and the other one reaching down to me. The Chief pulled me up off the deck like I weighed as much as a kitten. He nodded in thanks and I nodded back. The Chief didn't mince words and I could respect that.

He started looking out into space again. He must have been talking with Cortana again.

"Mobuto!" I yelled looking over where I came into the lift room. He was still there. He was good soldier. But, so were Perez and Walker and they were standing there too, ready to back me up; against orders "Get you ass over here, boy! And you two fuck ups get over here, too!" They hustled over to the Wraith where me and the Chief were standing.

"The plan is still the same. Cortana has a fix on the Captains position. Keep your men stationed at the door to the hangar." Chief said to me while my team approached.

"Pardon me, sir, but you can stow that order. I didn't fight my way onto this tub just to stand around holding my dick." I said just as my men got there.

"Walker, Perez! I thought I told you two to stay put!"

"Sir, It was Danny's idea, Sir!" Walker said, mocking innocence.

"No hablo espanol, Senor Johnson!" Perez said smiling.

"Yeah and I'm gonna 'no hablo' both of your ass's when we get back to Alpha base!" I chided. I was teasing but they damned sure were going to be cleaning the latrines if they made it back. "In the meantime, you two are gonna hold this room with those ODST' s and this time you going to stay put! Am I making myself clear this time Marines?"

"Yessir!" Perez and Walker said in unison.

"Good! 'Cause I mean it. I want this room to be UNSC property until we get back. This gravity lift is my way off this bucket and I don't want any Covenant standing between me and the bottle of hooch I stole from Sliva's office before the Pillar of Autumn went down."

"Hassan!" I said over the comm.

"Sir?" he asked.

"You got that door rigged to blow yet?"

"Yessir!"

"Groovy. Give the detonator to the ODST corporal and you and Barry get your tales on up here. Make sure Barry is packing that Jackhammer."

"Aye, aye, sir!"

To the Chief I continued, "Now like I was saying, me and my men aren't Spartans but we are what you got to work with today. I've been fighting this War since I was a teenager. I've lost a sister to it, a wife. I'm not even the only man that saved your life today, Chief. I knew the woman that saved your hide ten minutes ago for ten years. More men have died under my command than I want to remember. But they were all soldiers and I know you understand why I won't dishonor their bravery by hiding in a storage room when there's fighting to get done. So, if you will lead the way, lets you and me get on with it."

"I like him!" Cortana said through the Chief's onboard speakers.

"You would." The Chief replied.

He looked at me for a long moment before saying, "Alright, Sergeant. You're with me."

"That's better. Can Cortana keep those other doors sealed until we get back?"

"I can seal them for now, but I can't guarantee how long I can keep them locked out." She replied.

"I'll take all the time you can buy us." I said just when Barry and Hassan arrived.

"How's it going newly wed's?" I asked. Hassan smiled and Barry stuck her tongue out in a gagging expression. "You four are gonna be my bouncers and this room is Club Johnson. Only one rule: No Covenant allowed. Keep that Jackhammer warmed up and ready to go in case the Covenant breaks through Cortana's defenses."

"Chief you ready to do this thing?" The Chief nodded. "Solid. Then lead the way. We got ass's to kick."

The Chief was a force of nature. Time after time in those corridors I saw him do things that shouldn't have been possible. Outgunned, out numbered, and even hand-to-hand, it didn't matter what the situation. He made sure we won every fight we encountered. I kept thinking to myself He can't be the only one left. We need as many men like him as we can get. I had to shake the awe off though. I was no slouch myself and this was a running fight.

The adrenalin was starting to wear off. I could feel a deep hurt aching under my arm where I landed on the Wraith after that Hunter tossed me like bottle cap. I couldn't let it slow me down though. I popped a stim to take the edge off. I hated taking those stims because they made it hard to focus at long range. I had to compromise though. I was fighting next to the finest soldier Earth's military may have ever produced and I'd be damned if I couldn't pull my own weight.

The Spartan halted us at a hatch.

"Cortana says the Shuttle Bay is on the other side." He said kneeling down.

"Take this." He said handing me a Covie plasma rifle. "I like my MA5B better too, but this'll bring down the Elites shields faster and you can finish them off with your Magnum."

"What's it look like in there, Cortana?" I asked the A.I.

"The bay has three levels. The Shuttle Bay's control deck is on the second. We can get to the Brig from the third. We'll have to pass through the Ship's Command Center to get to the Brig."

"Sounds like a walk in the park." The Spartan jabbed a syringe of biofoam under one of the plates of his armor on his torso. He must have been a little worse for wear too.

"I'm ready." He said when he was finished.

We ran into the Shuttle Bay cocked, locked and ready to rock. I had to dodge a plasma grenade almost before I made it inside. Two Elites and a Grunt were standing guard at the edge of the bay. I tossed a frag grenade to teach them a lesson about bunching up during a firefight. We were taking fire from a gaggle of Jackals from up on level two. The Master Chief finally had room to put that M19 he'd been lugging around to good use. Another Elite rushed into the Shuttle Bay from a hatch. I hosed it down with plasma until its shield went down then I switched to my Magnum and put three rounds in its chest. The Chief blasted the hell out of the Jackals on level two that were taking pot shots at us with the Jackhammer.

Just like that the first floor was all ours. We weren't out of the woods yet though. An Elite that was an excellent shot with a plasma rifle had us pent to the base of the Shuttle Bay's control deck.

"It's one of those hard ass special ops squiddies that are done up in black. Bastard almost hit me with a plasma grenade as soon as we got in here. How many rounds you got left for that Jackhammer?"

"Two, but I got no angle on him down here."

"Bastards damn sure got an angle on us. Besides. You slow down long enough to prime that Jackhammer and he'll have a plasma grenade attached to your ass before you can even look through the site."

"So let's beat him at his own game." The Chief said tossing me a plasma grenade.

"I like it." I said understanding. The Chief took off toward the center of the Shuttle Bay.

I was in the stands when Kaz Yoshida shattered the record for the 100 meters. I was a recruit and the Olympics were being held on Reach. That record stands to this day. The Chief's sprint would have put Kaz to shame.

He needed every ounce of speed he had, too. The Elite was peppering his tracks with plasma. The Chief made it to a maze of Covenant storage containers for cover. From cover, he peeked out and returned fire. The Chief had no shot from there and the Elite knew it so it opened up.

That was my opening. I was only going to get one shot. With its back turned I primed the grenade and heaved it. It lobbed over the rail and stuck to the back of that son of a bitch's head. The Elite roared in outrage just before the grenade exploded and splattered his ass all over the Bay.

On the other side of the Shuttle Bay the resistance was less organized. A mixed group of Jackals and Grunts was fool enough to walk right into an ambush the Chief and I threw together on instinct. When you've been fighting as long as we have, combat gets so far down into your bones that setting up an "L" shaped ambush gets to be like riding a bike. You can't remember not knowing how to do it.

"Hassan! Do you read me?" I asked over the comm. I could tell the Chief was conferring with the Cortana when he started to look up into space. We were stalled and Cortana was our way out of that bay. I took advantage of the lull by popping another stim and checking in with my men.

"Yessir!" Hassan replied.

"How's my exit looking?"

"Whatever you guys are up to seems to be the only thing the Covies are thinking about right now. We had a couple of attempts to breach the lift room, but it was only a couple of rookies and a few grunts. They haven't given it another go in twenty minutes, sir."

"Glad to hear it. Hold tight. We outta be heading your way within the hour."

"Aye,aye, sir!"

Just then another hatch opened up and a couple of Hunters lumbered into the bay. The Chief shouldered his Jackhammer and fired two times. The Hunters didn't even get a chance to power up their guns.

"What happened to your trick with the Magnum?" I asked the Spartan.

"I like this way…better." The Chief deadpanned.

"Got it!" Cortana said over the onboard speakers. And with that another hatch opened up. "Everyone should move through the door now. I can't guarantee that it won't lock behind you when it closes."

"Sounds like an R.S.V.P party to me!"

"Follow me!" The Chief said.

In we went. Back into the shit. More corridors. More close calls. More dead Covenant. It was turning out to be a real nice day. That pain under my arm was getting worse by the second, though. I wasn't going to take another stim. Couldn't afford to get too wired. I was just going to have to live with it for now.

"The Captains signal is strong. He must be close." Cortana said to us through the Chiefs onboard speakers. We had finally made it to the Brig. We went door to door until one of the hatches opened up into a cellblock. We ran inside looking for the Captain. The Chief deactivated the force fields that had sealed off the holding cells. They were all empty save one.

And there I was, standing over the beaten, broken corpse of PFC William C. Reynolds. I was in the brig of an alien vessel that I boarded with fewer than a platoon of men. If I didn't get medical attention pretty soon, I was going to wind up with a punctured lung and I would die.

I thought I'd kept my injury from the Master Chief. Then he said, "Are you up for this?"

"I could ask you the same thing. You're probably busted up a lot worse than me under those metal britches of yours." I said shrugging off my pain. "But, yeah, I'm up for it. Besides, I got a couple of reasons to make it through this one."

"Yeah?" the Chief asked as he chambered a round into his MA5B. "What's that?"

"A bottle of scotch and this pretty little medic that's gonna to have her hands all over me when we get back to Alpha Base." I grinned.

"The Captains signal is extremely strong from here. My guess is that he's down the hall." Cortana informed us.

Sure enough, there were two Jackals around the next bend standing guard outside of a hatch. The Chief rushed them. He was down the hall and splitting their skulls with the butt of his rifle in an instant. I caught up with him and we entered the room together. There were two Grunts, both sleeping against opposite pillars. Down at the end of the cellblock, a black clad Elite stood at the control panel for the holding sells. Experience spoke volumes for how we were going to handle this. We didn't need to confer. We practically pulled our combat knives at the same time.

We bled the Grunts and unslung our rifles. Simultaneously we wheeled around the pillars converging our fire on the Elite. It was on the ground before he had a chance to reach for his Needler.

"Alright, Big Green!" One of the captive Marines shouted from his holding cell.

I was looking for Keyes's cell when another Marine shouted, "Sarge! Look out!" I turned and saw the Chief was pointing his rifle in my direction!

I dove, tucked, and rolled. The Chief fired over my head. I looked back from the ground and caught sight of what he was shooting at. Another one of those camouflaged bastards was trying to get the jump on me. Then, I looked back at the Chief and behind him saw what looked like heat waves. The Covie Needler the black Elite had dropped was laying down in front of me. I picked it up and sent a stream of crystals at those heat waves. This time it was the Chiefs turn to dive, tuck, and roll, just before those needles exploded ripping the Elite to shreds.

"Goddamn I love this fucking job! Oorah!" I shouted. The other Marines erupted in cheers as the Chief ran up to the control panel and opened up the cells.

"Coming here was reckless." The Captain said to us. " "Thanks."

"Anytime, sir."

"Can we find our way out?" the Captain asked.

"Oh, I think we'll be able to manage, sir." I said looking at the Chief.

"The corridors of this ship are like a maze." the Captain said, sounding concerned.

"It shouldn't be too difficult." The Master Chief replied. "All we have to do is follow the bodies."

The fighting was tough coming from the Brig, but not as hard as it was on the way in. We made it to the ships Command Center where the fighting picked up. The Chief relayed a brief he got from Cortana that it was too hot for Foehammer to make it to the rendezvous point. We were going to have to improvise. We were almost to the Shuttle Bay when I figured it was time to give my troops the good news.

"Hassan!"

"Yessir!"

"We still got an exit?"

"Club Johnson is still exclusive, sir!"

"All right. I want you to blow that door and make your way to the Shuttle Bay. Foehammer won't be able to make it, but the Captain has been so gracious as to offer to chauffer your sorry ass's back to Alpha base in our brand spanking new Covenant dropship. Just follow the trail of bodies and you'll probably get there before I do. Keep'em tight. Hassan. I want all my people off this tub. Even Walker and Perez."

"Thanks, Sarge! You're the best!" Walker said sarcastically over the comm.

"You won't be thanking me when we get back to the base, boy. Johnson, out!"

We made it into the shuttle bay. The Master Chief lowered a repelling line down to my troopers. I could tell they had encountered some resistance on the way in from the looks on their faces.

"Where's, Barry?" I asked Mobuto. He just shook his head. I looked over to Hassan. He had a lock of brown hair tied to his dog tags. It was against regs, but I wasn't going to bring it up. We boarded the dropship, and the Captain got us back to Alpha Base.

In my tent, I wrote three letters. One to PFC Maria Barry's parents telling them how competent and brave their daughter was. One to PFC William C. Reynolds folks offering consolation in how tenaciously he fought the enemy even to the very end. One to Sergeant Ellen Parker's husband and children telling them how proud they should be of her for fighting for so long giving her life the same way she had been living it for so many years; saving the lives of other soldiers. My words were not enough; not by a long shot. Maybe I wouldn't even make it off this Ring to get them to their destination. Still, getting those letters where they were supposed to go did give me another reason to make it through.


End file.
